This invention pertains to web handling apparatus such as air bars for floatingly suspending a running web and drying the material such as ink on the web, without permitting the web to touch any supporting surfaces. The invention is in the nature of an improvement over U.S. Pat. No. 3,549,070 which issued Dec. 22, 1970 to Frost et al entitled "Floatation of Sheet Materials" and also over U.S. Pat. No. 3,873,013 which issued Mar. 25, 1975 to Paul H. Stibbe entitled "High Velocity Web Floating Air Bar having Central Exhaust Means", both of which have been assigned to an assignee common with the present invention.
The present invention utilizes the Coanda effect found in the above two patents, but eliminates the need for center holes in the air bar plates, which holes were used to interrupt the flow of air completely across the air bar from one air slot to the other, thereby acting as a spoiler, and furthermore, permits a greater portion of the air jets issuing from the slots to go inwardly towards the center of the air bar, thereby increasing the drying and floatation capacity over the prior art devices.